Copper Valley – The Giant Worms' Rampage
The commotion in the inn vanished the instant Lee Dam made her offer.
It was the only time this kind of quiet had ever fallen over the place, save for when the owner closed up at the very end of the night.
A sudden, suffocating stillness had settled in, and Lee Dam simply shrugged her shoulders with a wicked grin.
“Let it go. Then I’ll kill every last one of you bastards.”
“…….”
“Free them right now and I’ll make it quick and painless. Burn you alive? Fry you? Freeze you solid? Or just tear you in half while you’re still breathing?”
Every person in Copper Valley felt a bone-deep terror as Lee Dam’s eerie promise rang out.
Even through the prickling of their hair, they couldn’t help thinking how undeniably beautiful this woman’s savage smile really was.
*That’s her real face.*
She could say the most terrifying things like a joke, yet the weight behind them was pure, unfiltered sincerity.
A joke of sincerity.
That was, in fact, the most terrifying part of all.
“D-demon…….”
One of the old men muttered the word without even realizing it.
In the old tales, demons would approach with playful smiles, seduce with honeyed whispers, then demand brutal ends. People kept telling those stories because the monsters were so damn charismatic, even when they brought nothing but tragedy.
That was exactly why Lee Dam felt like a demon.
Alluring. And lethal.
“So? How about it?”
Lee Dam’s smile widened as she demanded an answer.
“Still got some left in you?”
She wasn’t pushing. The situation itself was.
“P-Poll?!”
Zeland called out desperately for Poll, panic clear in his voice.
*We don’t have time for this!* the terrified look on his face said.
*If you don’t stop them right now, they’ll push through the village and start hunting us like animals!*
“Fuck…….”
Poll, the rare officer among them, actually swore. He almost never used language like that—only when he was in uniform.
Right now the situation was forcing him to choose exactly that path, and sweat beaded on his forehead even though he stood perfectly still.
“Hmm?”
*God damn it.*
The smug, cocky grin on his face was still somehow attractive.
Truly, she was the perfect fit for calling a demon.
*Maybe she’s one of the Seong-un cultists after all?*
A logical thought crossed his mind, yet the greater threat right now wasn’t the cult—it was the monsters pouring into the mine.
“Let’s start with one clear thing…… If you release our cuffs, will we survive?”
“Survive? Of course we will. I’ve never actually seen a monster before, but I’m pretty sure I can take them out.”
“…….”
The words had zero conviction, yet the sheer ease with which she said them made them strangely believable.
But Poll wasn’t asking about survival.
“You don’t seem sure we won’t kill you. If you’re carrying that kind of power, you’re still a criminal. We’re just witnesses to your escape.”
“Oh. That?”
Lee Dam tilted her head, genuinely confused.
“Being eaten by monsters here or by you—does it really make a difference?”
“…….”
“Besides, if I’m the one killing you, it’ll be cleaner.”
The old men took an involuntary step back from her, as if they had finally realized how dangerous the woman they’d been chatting with was.
“Pfft.”
Lee Dam gave a playful laugh and shook her head.
“I’m not going to kill you. This village just caught my interest. No, more accurately…… the old men. You guys.”
Her words were sincere.
The soft light in her eyes carried a tenderness she had never shown any man before.
Among all the men she had met in this world so far, she secretly thought they might actually be the most attractive.
*If only I could crack open their skulls and pull their brains out, I’d keep them forever.*
……Of course, it wasn’t normal affection. Not by a long shot.
“Kyaaah!”
Screams erupted from outside.
Poll closed his eyes and nodded.
“I’ll leave it to you.”
* * *
The monsters pouring into Copper Valley were called Giant Worms.
They were also known as giant earthworms, their bodies as hard as steel, their fangs specially adapted to rip through soft human flesh.
They could swallow a person whole, but some of them took the time to chew and savor their meals.
That’s why they were no ordinary monsters.
Like flies swarming trash, or crows and maggots gathering on corpses.
There had to be a reason for their appearance.
Contaminated ley lines, twisted mana flows, accumulated negative human energy, a rare being nearby, or the first sign of a dark god.
In short, they weren’t goblin-like creatures that just happened to be hungry and attacked humans on sight.
There was a clear cause-and-effect here. These Great Worms had appeared in the abandoned mine of Copper Valley and were now flooding the village.
BANG! CRASH!
Seeing them charge toward the entrance, the villagers had no choice but to flee deeper inside.
“Where the hell is Poll?!”
“Do you really think Poll can solve this? Just run until your feet bleed!”
“Oh, gods! Please, save us!”
The Great Worms kept pouring in despite the villagers’ desperate struggles and prayers.
They moved with unmistakable killing intent, their only purpose to hunt humans, yet they still crushed everything in their path.
It felt exactly like the waves of dark gods.
Even though there were so many of them that the number was almost impossible to count, they still somehow managed to squeeze through and flood in.
There was nowhere left for them to escape. They were just like the unstoppable tide swallowing the entire village.
At that moment, Poll stepped forward into the path of the fleeing villagers.
He had a hunting shotgun slung over his shoulder. He took aim, then lowered the gun after a moment.
*What’s the point? Shooting them does nothing.*
Bullets would just waste away.
“Poll! Do something!”
“Fuck! What the hell is going on?!”
As an ex-officer, Poll should have been able to come up with a solution, yet the villagers still asked him.
Poll answered with a pained expression.
“Hold on. Melting cuffs isn’t as easy as it looks.”
“W-what?!”
“What do you mean?!”
“Explain it clearly, you bastard!”
*He doesn’t know either.*
Poll shrugged off the shotgun and shouted with gritted teeth.
“Just run and survive! Someone’s going to save us soon—!”
“Ugh, shit.”
The moment he finished, a woman walked out from inside the inn, grumbling under her breath.
“My hands are burning hot. I basically melted them for you, right?”
A black tattoo had been burned onto her cheek, but it vanished in an instant.
The old men had sawed it from the outside while she used the dark god’s authority from within. The cuffs were cut far too quickly.
The sight of the old men still praising the strength of the Iron Magic Tower somehow brought a small comfort to Lee Dam.
“Hurry—!”
Poll opened his mouth to beg her for help—
“Hm.”
The corner of Lee Dam’s mouth lifted in a small smile.
Standing between the villagers and the Great Worms, she began to gather the mana concentrated around her.
“Are there no mages nearby?”
A chill formed at her feet as she muttered.
“The air is still full of mana.”
*Crack—crack—crack—crack—crack!*
The ground began to freeze.
The freezing spread out to meet the incoming Great Worms.
Soon it stopped their movements.
KIIIIIII!
The Great Worms roared in fury. They had been stopped, but they were far from dead.
They still looked ready to break through the ice and keep coming.
“Stay still.”
Lee Dam grinned and extended her hand.
“I’m a little inexperienced with aiming.”
Behind her, dozens of iron spears materialized and flew straight toward the Great Worms.
Thwack! Thwack! Thwack!
Cruel sounds filled the air.
The monsters’ agonized screams.
Streams of blood.
Underneath it all—
“Hahaha! These bugs are way too tough!”
Lee Dam kept firing spells with wild excitement.
* * *
“Ah, this is annoying.”
She had been having fun playing by the sea, but stepping on sand afterward and the sticky feeling of changing clothes in the changing room had always bothered her.
She had enjoyed shooting magic and slaughtering the monsters, yet the blood that splattered everywhere forced her to change her outfit.
“Waaah…… You’re really beautiful, Mage-nim.”
“Our daughter’s dress from before she left the village. It’s actually quite popular in the Republic.”
“B-but it seems a little small in the chest area.”
After buying new clothes for the village ladies, Lee Dam frowned at her reflection in the mirror.
“Give me a hair tie. This mess is so uncomfortable.”
She roughly tied her hair with the hair tie she had somehow received. It was passable compared to before, but still messy as hell.
Even so, none of the women dared say they would do it for her.
They had just seen how she had slaughtered the monsters.
She had saved the village, so they were grateful, but fear was unavoidable.
After roughly tying her hair, Lee Dam stepped outside, still turning Poll’s words over in her mind.
*So these aren’t just random monsters?*
If that was the case, there had to be a reason they had suddenly appeared in the village’s mine.
Lee Dam decided to investigate.
The reason was simple.
She had liked the village’s engineers, so she needed to make sure they stayed safe.
*If the ones I plan to use later die, that’s a problem.*
She headed toward the mine.
The moment she arrived and tried to check what was going on—
“Thank you, Hero-nim!”
A woman’s voice rang in her ear along with the buzzing of fly wings.
Lee Dam whipped her head around.
There stood a fairy no larger than a human palm.
“Kyaaah?!”
The fairy squirmed from Lee Dam’s rough grab, but Lee Dam simply smiled wickedly as she figured out why the Great Worms had appeared.
A rare being was involved.
“So it was you little shits.”
It seemed this attack was all because of the fairies.
* * *
The Giant Blast Furnace of the Magic Tower.
It was surprising how quickly the news of the entire tower sharing this massive furnace spread to the Iron Magic Tower.
Because of that—
The furnace kept roaring without pause, yet the mages and knights who moved inside it looked utterly drained.
……We have to extract as much as we can while we still can.
Tower Guardian Theodore spoke to the mages and knights with clear bitterness.
They were the only ones who could monopolize it now. They had to use it while they still could. Once it became shared, they would look back on this moment with regret.
But nothing was coming out.
How much pain and struggle the Iron mages had gone through to build this furnace.
They had been whipped mercilessly without rest, and now they could laugh and call it a good memory.
But now it was being taken away, and the pain from that day was coming back fresh.
*If Lee Dam had been here……*
*Ha, who knew a madwoman like her would be missed one day.*
*Why did she even challenge the Archmage in the first place?*
The mages’ thoughts tangled together.
Some said if Lee Dam had still been here, they wouldn’t have lost it.
Others countered that she had been the one to challenge the Archmage and give them the chance to take it.
But no matter what, the furnace wouldn’t have been built without her.
It was impossible to blame anyone completely.
“Theodore-nim?”
“Hm?”
A sweating mage suddenly approached.
He pointed at the thermometer with a bewildered expression.
“T-the temperature…… seems to be dropping?”
